Cheating on NaNoWriMo

IS it cheating to participate in National Novel Writing Month but not write fiction?
Ok, so I know I said that I was not going to do NaNo … but they signed me up and now they are counting on me! Here’s what happened (for those who missed my earlier reference): I went to the [...]

Peruvian music and the trip ahead

So that YouTube stuff is pretty cool… Yeh, I’m behind the curve — I never said I was a technogeek, just a lowly English professor. I’ve known about YouTube for a while, but finally had occasion to visit the site because, of all things, my son’s Spanish teacher gave the kids an assignment [...]

Grandma’s God

“As I grew up, I realized that there was more to religion than fear.”
Yesterday, my hubbie gave me a copy of a book I mentioned that I’d like to read: A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong. I like the quotation above. Fear has become the [...]

No NaNo but maybe NaMemo…?

Okay, so I went to the National Novel Writing Month website and decided to check it out after being encouraged to do NaNo myself … even though I am not writing fiction…. Thanks for the suggestion, struggling writer and sheshewriter.
Here’s a quote from the NaNo site that epitomizes why I want to participate [...]

Back on the Homestead: Grand Tour part 4

On our mega road trip this summer we spent a total of nine days in Minnesota. Out of seven weeks traveling through twenty-two states, that’s a big chunk of time. But it felt like we could have stayed there much longer. For one thing, I had no idea how interesting and enjoyable [...]

Another Good Book: Adventures in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird

“There’s nothing Western folks admire so much as pluck in a woman….”
I’ve been meaning to read this slim volume of Isabella Bird’s letters home ever since I was working on my dissertation. Bird was a Brit who traveled to the American west in 1873 and was the first woman to scale Long’s Peak (14,700 [...]

I’m not doing NaNo. So there.

Lately I’ve come across a lot of bloggers who are preparing to write the Great American Novel in the month of November. Lord love em. Good luck to y’all.
I’m not going to be writing the Great American Novel next month. In fact, I do not write fiction. I’m strictly a “creative [...]

I’m going to Peru in January: What on Earth am I thinking…?

Yeh, so I’m going to Peru. And I am not going there to visit ancient Incan sites and pick up some cheap alpacha hats. I am joining a group of engineering students and their professor (and a few other volunteers), and we will be traveling up into several remote Andean villages to work [...]

Facing Fears in Minnesota: Grand Tour part 3

Before leaving on our grand road trip across America, I was worried about two potential crises: (1) we would encounter bad weather, by which I mean tornadoes (and I wouldn’t recognize the warning signs and we would be swept away in a terrifying ordeal, brought to a bitter end in the land of our foremothers [...]

More on why I loved her…

I remember…
Many years ago, a grandniece of Grandma’s was getting married in San Francisco (at least I think that’s the relationship … with Grandma being one of eleven children, she had a LOT of nieces and nephews.) Anyway, Grandma and I were sitting next to each other at the reception. Waiters were wandering [...]